Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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naiAi (HhRarkerBvHer. ILLUSTRATIONS B/RE.WAJSQK SEVENTH INSTALLMENT K WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE Simon Judd, amateur detective, and William Dart, an undertaker, are visiting John Drane, eccentric man of wealth, at, the Drane place. * Suddenly the household is shocked to find that John Drane has been murdered. The dead man is first seen by Josie, the maid, then by Amy Drane and Simon Judd. The latter taints. Police officers call and investigations i begin. Dr. Blessington is called, and after seeing the murdered John Drane, makes the astounding revelation to Amy Drane that her “uncle” is not a man but a woman. Dr. Blessington discounts the theory of suicide, saying that Drane was definitely murdered. Dr. Blessington comments on the fact that all the seivants in the house hold of Drane are sick, and that Drane has never discharged a servant for ill health. Dick Brennan, the detective, arrives to investigate the case. Brennan questions the persons in the house, asking Amy if anyone had any rea son. to kill her “uncle.” Amy says no ont had any reason to kill her uncle. After further questioning, she is asked about Dart. Meanwhile Judd has told the story of his acquaintance with the actual John Drane in Kiverbank. NOW Gt) ON WITH THE STORY “No, nothing. He was uncle John’s friend a long while—long before I came here,” Amy said. “They have played cards together many evenings.” “Never quarreled?'* • “No.” “You’ve not noticed anything queer about the servants?” Bren nan asked after a moment • “Do you mean that they were sickly?” Amy asked. “Are they?” "Yes; 1 think they are all sickly. I don’t know why uncle John had such sickly servants, unless he was so kind hearted. Dr. Blessington is here nearly every day for one or another of them, some one of them is always- in bed. It makes it very hard for Mrs. Vincent, the housekeeper, but I’m afraid she’s the sickest of any.” “But aside from that you’ve not noticed anything queer in them. Anything you might call craziness, any mania?” “Oh, no; never anything like that,” Amy said." “You don’t know of any enemies your uncle had?” “No; he never spoke of any.” “He had business in New York, hadn’t he? Had an office there?” “Yes,” Amy said, and told him the address, which Brennan jotted down in his notebook. “He was a speculator, I think. * He would wait and buy a great lot of some one kind of stocks and then they would go up and he would sell. I think he always made a great deal of money that way. I don’t really know much about that. They can tell you more at his office. His manager there is Rufus Lodermann. He is quite an old man and he bas been with uncle. For a long while, I think.” Brennan jotted down this name in his notebook. “Who else is there? You don’t know? No matter—I can look that up,” the detective said, putting his book in his pocket again. “And 1 think that is all I have to ask you now, Miss Drane, unless you can tell me something about- the servants—who they arc and where they came from.” “I think Mrs. Vincent, the house keeper, can tefl you more about that,” Amy said. I’ve not really paid much attention to that; I’ve always felt I wasn’t wanted to in terfere. Mrs. Vincent had been here quite a while when I came, and uncle was old and liked to have things as they were. He didn’t seem to want to have me do anything but enjoy myself.” “But you were always ready to do your share if anything turned up,” said Brennan, smiling. “T can - see that, Miss Drane.” “Of course,” Amy said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to.” “Mr. Drane just did not seem to want you to bother with the servants and the household affairs and so on; that was it, wasn’t it?” “Yes; he never said much but tha‘t was what I felt,” she replied. “I’m trying not to be unpleasant, asking so many questions,” Bren nan said, “but this whole thing is queerish, as you understand—John Drane being a woman and being murdered this way—and I have to get into my head the best picture of the household as it was, the best picture I can. How was your uncle about money?” Amy wrinkled her brow, trying \ to get the meaning of the ques tion. “Do you mean with me?” she asked. “He paid me an allowance, always on the first of the month. It was fifty dollars while I was at^ school, but when I came here he gave me a hundred dollars a month. I haven't used nearly all of it. I asked him what I should do with the rest and he told me I could put it in a savings bank, and I did. The house expenses he settled with Mrs. Vincent—once a month, I think. I*ve heard them going over the bMls. He seemed particular about thorn.” ‘He was a woman,” suggested Brennan, “and household bills were in his line, possibly. Did he keep much money in the house? Had he a safe here? Did he bring securities home, do you know?” “No, nothing like that. He used checks almost always.” “No jewelery to amount to any thing?” “He never wore jewelry at all; not even a ring.” “There was a scarf pin,” Bren nan reminded her. “Yes; that was all the jewelry he had,” Amy said. “I thought, perhaps, as he was a woman,” Brennan explained, “he might have a woman’s usual liking for jewels. Suppose we see Mrs. Vincent.” Bob Carter volunteered to find Mrs. Vincent and while he was on his way Brennan lighted a cigar ette. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked out over the lawn. “You come purty near bein’ a first class detective, don’t you?” Simon Judd asked, hitching forward in his chair he filled to overflow ing. “Yes, or I wouldn’t have wanted it,” said Simon Judd. “But the, main thing when a man hammers down a job like that is to be able to hang onto it, and that’s why I figgered I’d come East here and learn the detective business from A to Z. I says to myself ‘If I can get them slick New York de tectives to let me help hunt up some murderer or something, I’ll learn a lot, and when I come back and catch a couple of crooks right here in Riverbank the folks ain’t ever goin’ to let nobody throw me out.’ ” “Brennan looked up at the* old man’s face suddenly, but all he saw was good nature and smiling cheer fulness. "This murder occurred very op portunely,” Brennan said. “That’s what I was going’ to say,’ v Simon Judd replied ” Just like it was made to order for me. It couldn’t have been handier. So that fetches me to what I’m goin’ to say—what’d you say if I was to go sort of partners with you and the two of us together hunt out who done this crime?” WAT30N Simon Judd makat his proposition to the detective. “I’m not the worst in the world,” Brennan said. “There are better. We’ve some fine men over in New York. Our men are a lot better han we’re given credit for being. We have lots of crimes and we don’t get every crook, but it’s a bad mess over there. I do well enough. It’s not as bad here as it is in Manhattan.” “That’s so; that’s likely,” Simon Judd agreed. “And we ain’t got it near as bad out to Reverbank. If you was out there you wouldn’t have much trouble at all, I reckon.” ‘There are tough problems everywhere,” Brennan said. “Any place may turn out a hard problem at any time.” “That’s how I think about it,” Simon Judd said. “That’s why I kept pesterin’ them out there until they said they’d make me chief of police. ‘Black my cats!’ I says to them; The ain't no tellin* when you’re goin’ to need fust class de tective ability.* I guess,” he chuckled, “they don’t think overly much of me at that! Think I’m some sort of fat old fool, mostly. And I don’t know but what I am. The’ ain’t no fool like an old fool, is the’? What you think? Am I a fool to go takin’ up detectin’ as a life work when I*m along past seventy years old?” “I’ll reserve my opinion on that. Mr. Judd,” Brennan smiled. “I ran’t remember any man who took up investigative work at that age, but I’ve known some men who took up crime as old as that and did quite well at it.” “A detective has to be slicker than a criminal, that’s the pest of it,Simon Judd said. “And it’s so blame hard for them folks to tak- a fat man serious out there to nome. Especially a man that’s mostly clung to jobs Where he could sleep most of the time, like livery-stablin’. I clung to livery- stablin’ as long as I could, and that’s a fact, but these here auto mobiles has eiven the business a black eye, ana if a man goes into the garage business he’s got to be lively artd wide awake all the time. 'Now, a detective-^-in a town like Jfciverbank, Iowa—” “Can sleep most of the time,” laughed Brennan. “That’s the idee!” Simon Judd chuckled. “Particular if he’s not on the force. If he^s just a police man he’s got to be out and around, but if he’s chief of police and de tective he’s got to spend quite a lot of time m meditation—slttin* in his office in a chair tipped back against the wall with his eves closed. Looked like a good job to me, so I got shut of my livery stable and pestered the life out of ’em until I got me this job, startin’ January first next.” ‘ Good job|” smiled Brennan. “We’re always glad to have any assistance we can from any source whatever,” Brennan told Judd. * “Yes, I reckon,” said the fat man. “Only that ain’t any idee. I want you should say we’ll work at this case together, so’s I can get the inside of how* you fellers go at 1 it. What say to it?” Once more Brennan looked Simon Judd tn the faec. What he sought was the eye of an insane man—the eye of a man who might have come to this house and murdered John Drane to make a case worth solving. Or, perhaps, the eye of a man who had held a grudge against John Drane and had come here to satisfy it What he saw, if he could judge, was the keen eye of a man who was not such a fool as he looked, the ke^n laughing eye of a man who, possibly, was laughing at the detective good naturedly while laughing at himself. “This,” Brennan said to himself, ‘is a man who is laughing at me because he knows something I don’t know!” “I won’t be no more trouble to you than need be,” Simon Judd said. “Only thing is it would be Quite an experience to me to work hand in arm, so to say, with a real detective like you are.” “I think we can manage it,” Bren nan said. “Black my cats, that’s fine!" Simon Judd exclaimed. “Amy, that fixes that fine! I’m goin’ to pitch right in and work at this thing until we get it all cleaned up and the murderous per son put right where he ought to be. Fine! Now, first off, girl, you go up to my room and, if them officers has got through rummagin’ in my bag gage, fetch me down a note book I’ve got in my valise up there. It’s a blank one, Amy, without anything wrote in it yet. I didn’t know whether real detectives u.tJ note books or not, but I see Brennan does, and I want to do this thing right. It*s right down in the bottom of the valise, Amy.” The girl went into the house and Simon Judd looked after her. When he saw she was gone he drew closer to Brennan. "Now that you and me are in ca hoots on this business, partner,” he said, “we want to start off clean and clear and no favors. What I know you want to know. If not fiothm’s no good. And there’s somethin’ wrong here right at the start.” “It being—?” Brennan asked. *v^ lc fl 11 '!* here,” Simon Judd whispered. “She ain’t what she says she is.” Continued Next Week n’t Fail to Read this Great Mystery Story in The People-Sentinel Each Week. 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